As reported by China Tech News, Chinese Internet portal and online game services provider NetEase.com, Inc. ((ADR) NASDAQ: NTES) announced the closing of L.163.com, its luxury goods Internet shopping platform, after only one year of operations.

Alibaba and Yahoo have had a long, and increasingly adversarial, relationship with each other. Yahoo has had a substantial equity stake (now about 40%) in the Chinese company since the companies formed a strategic partnership in November 2006. As Alibaba’s businesses have grown and Yahoo’s business has faltered, the Chinese company has expressed its interest in buying back most of the stake that Yahoo owns in it. With many analysts assigning more value to Yahoo’s Asian assets — which also includes a 35% stake in Yahoo Japan — then in its domestic business, it has not been surprising that Yahoo’s management has resisted these overtures to divest from Alibaba.

Of course, things over the past several months have changed as Yahoo has been considering takeover offers and is now taking a hard look at a proposal by Alibaba and Softbank — its Read the rest of this entry »

According to the press release from USTR, “Baidu, one of the world’s most visited sites and previously identified as an example of a site linking to infringing content, [was released from the list] for entering into a licensing agreement with U.S. and other rights holders in the recording industry.” Specifically Baidu reached an agreement in July of this year with the top three record labels — Sony, Universal Music, and Warner Music Group — to start compensating them for music distributed their platform.

“Piracy and counterfeiting continue to present a serious challenge to the innovation and creativity that is essential to supporting American jobs and creating economic growth around the world. The notorious markets highlighted in this review negatively impact legitimate businesses and industries of all sizes that rely on intellectual property to protect their goods and services. We hope that this review will continue to yield the kind of concrete action from highlighted markets that led to the removal of several markets from the list this year.”
– Ron Kirk, United States Trade Representative

Despite Baidu’s removal from the list, it is clear that China is still a large source of digital piracy and physical counterfeit goods. Most notably Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace and Taobao MallRead the rest of this entry »

As microblogs (the generic name for Twitter services) have exploded in China there has been an ongoing debate whether users should have to supply their real names when registering their accounts. In other words, should users be forced to identify themselves when they broadcast their views on a variety of topics from the banal to the most controversial issues of government and business. Finally the Chinese regulatory authorities have decided that the freedom to hide your commentary behind a screen name will no longer be allowed.

According to Xhinhuanet.com, the official word came from government agencies in Beijing on Friday that new rules will require microblog users to provide their true identities when registering their accounts. The new real name registration will only be required to publish and share posts, not to read them. The rules were issued jointly by Beijing’s public security bureau, communication administration and Internet information office as well as the Beijing government’s press office.

While many may view this as an attempt to discourage speech critical of the government the regulatory officials claim that it is a necessary step in order to “help microblogging service Read the rest of this entry »

According to China Daily the online search industry in China will continue to be competitive as smaller players look to challenge the Baidu, Inc. ((ADR) NASDAQ: BIDU), the dominant leader. In particular Sohu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SOHU), one of China’s largest Internet portals, has announced its plans to invest aggressively in its search subsidiary, Sogou, by doubling its staff to 1,400 people. The new employees will purportedly be mainly in engineering and marketing.

The Chinese search market is similar to the U.S. with a dominant leader and a handful of smaller competitors funded by larger Internet companies. In November, according to online data research company Cnzz.com Inc., Baidu’s search traffic accounted for almost 81% of the Read the rest of this entry »